Having made up my mind I pushed the button to my demise, or simply gave my mana the order to rampage all it wanted inside my body and that’s what it did.

But the damage from recklessly trying to complete the second stage ended up being too big and it almost took my life.

{Mana manipulation has risen to lv 6}

{-105Hp}

{You are bleeding internally}

{-1Hp/sec}

[Hp: 46]

“Heal!”

I didn’t wait for the messages to appear and notify me of my degrading health and simply used [Heal] the moment the first bouts of pain hit me.

The same brilliant golden glow of [Heal] covered me from head to toe and I felt energy returning to my dried up well of life.

A minute later with the dissipation of the golden glow, I was once again ready to tackle boulders and bulls, but conceded by looking at the notification congratulating me for successfully completing the second stage of body cultivation.

Congratulations! You have succeeded in cultivating the second stage of Body cultivation.

It is hard! Hard and dangerous, this path toward strength, but don’t falter now. As this is just the beginning.

Reward: +5Strength, +3Agility, +3Endurance, +1vitality, +1Intelligence.

“Hah! Finally, it’s over!”

The second stage wasn’t as hard as the first stage one, but it was painful, slightly painful. Though the loss of health being the result of it being critical damage was too dangerous and almost made me an undead, but everything worked out in the end.

“I probably shouldn’t cultivate another level until my health reaches at least 150 points.” Maybe that was a bad decision too, but I was just too eager to gain those extra stat points and see what lay beyond the boundary of muscle cultivation.

“Okay, let’s see the qualification for completing the third stage and then we’ll go out.”

Third stage of body cultivation:

Description: Your muscles are now tougher and stronger than before. So in order to break them down and complete the process you need,

Mana required: 300

Skills required: Mana condense lv 4, Mana Opening lv 4, Mana manipulation lv 5, Mana Influence lv 4

Procedure: Similar to first stage.

Result: +10Strength, +5Agility, +5Endurance, +2Vitality, +1Intelligence

“Whoa~ the rewards doubled.” Though I hadn’t laid my hands on the rewards yet, but the sweetness of knowing the end result was satisfying in itself.

“Ha~ If only there was no pain…”

But how could that be? If there is no pain, there are no gains.

No matter what, I was still happy. I had gotten what I wanted. I had evolved all of my skills, completed my cultivation, and finally seen what my stats looked like.

“Now, let’s move out.” I said with conviction as my memories of breaking through the egg as a young novice kid and taking my first some steps played in my mind.

Though I had stumbled and fallen a lot of times on the way, but in the end I had succeeded. The path I had walked wasn’t soft and was filled to the brim with obstacles, but I had finally reached this point, and now I was stronger than before. Though I still had a long way to go, but at least I was strong enough to not feel scared of Bees.

“Yeah right.”

*Crack*

I stood up and the top part of the egg couldn’t handle the force and broke.

The shell didn’t fall from my head and adorned my head like a hat, as I looked outside to see thousands of ants standing outside, waiting for something.

At first I thought maybe I was interrupting a meeting or something, but when every one’s eyes fell on me and the whole area became silent like a grave yard, I couldn’t ask for forgiveness. I felt so embarrassed that I wanted to go back into the egg and behave like that never happened, but I couldn’t do so.

“Umm…” I scratched my cheek with a sly smile on my face, but before I could say anything, an ant came running out of the crowd shouting,

“Big brother?”

Soon three more ants came running out of the crowd and stood beside him and started staring at me in reverence with tears welling in their eye. Two of them even had snort coming out of their fictional noses.

“Yes.” I replied to Tiny who still looked the same.

“Big brother!” he yelled in surprise, and the cheek I scratched because of feeling embarrassed became itchy once again.

“Umm… yeah?” I asked with intentions for him to say something after that, but instead he shouted, “BIG BROTHER!” at the top of his voice and jumped at me.

[Auto defense] tried to move my body and dodge what it considered an attack, but I canceled it before it could and caught Tiny in my arms. I caught Bill too who had jumped at me right after Tiny had, but dodged his other goons before they could reach me. I wasn’t strong enough to catch all of them yet.

And while I was thinking about things to ask them, the crowd in the room, cavern wherever I was, started yelling out so loudly that I had to forcefully deactivate [Sensitive hearing]

“He’s out!”

“He’s out!”

“Whoa he looks so handsome!”

“Marry me hero!”

“HERO!”

“HERO!!”

“HERO!!!”

Remembering the title I had gained somewhere along while evolving my skills “Ant Hero” I knew they were cheering for me. I wasn’t that ignorant, but didn’t know why there were gathered there.

“What happened here?” I mumbled and Bill answered me with his voice trembling and cracking from his disturbed emotions, while wiping his tears with his antennas.

“A week ago when you defeated the king…” he said and I thought, ‘I slept for a whole week?’

“An egg formed around you and when everyone saw that you were evolving they decided to not leave before seeing the new you. No matter what the captains said or did, the citizens and soldiers refused to leave, and they, we have been waiting for you to come out of the egg ever since.”

The ants hadn’t stopped yelling at all. Actually by now everyone was yelling the same word, “HERO!” over and over again like a chant, while looking at me and their excitement and energy way off the charts.

But my mind wasn’t on them. My whole concentration was on listening to Billy and looking at Tiny who was clinging to me like I was going to leave him. And he was crying.

“WHA~ Big brother where were you.”

I slowly rubbed his head and said, “It is okay. I am here now.” with a smile and Tiny told me how upon the zombies attack, the old mean officer with whom I had gone out with had come to rescue them. He had taken them out of the mound and saved his and others lives.

“I refused to go, but he said it was okay. I wanted to come help you, but he said you were fine and didn’t need my help.”

*Sniff*

“He said I am incompetent, weak and childish.” Tears flowed down his eyes and his voice got almost drowned by the shouts from everyone in the cavern.

“He said rather than trying to reach you and die, I should survive and live to become strong.” His hug tightened across my waist. I felt his worry toward me, and his anger toward himself passing through to my heart through his shallow breaths and his shivering body.

“I wanted to help you,” he said breaking our eye contact. “But I couldn’t.” he gritted his jaw and slowly apologized, “I’m sorry brother. I’m sorry…” his voice turned into a squeak as his heart leaped into his mouth and he silently uttered, “I’m sorry that I am useless.”

I wanted to tell him that it was okay. I am strong. That I didn’t need anyone’s help. But I also knew those weren’t the words that he wanted to hear.

War teaches everyone at least one thing. Some learn to run away, while others learn to fight with their lives on the line. Some learn the truth about the nature of wars, while others become deluded and laugh at the deaths of others.

Some gain profits, while others gain the courage to stand up to face their own shortcomings and try to fill the void of ability that they find in themselves.

Tiny was asking me to make him strong and I knew how to do it. So instead of telling him to be a kid, I told him, “Tiny, you did good surviving. Now you know how cruel and evil wars are. Tell me what you want to do?”

He looked at me like an eagle’s fledgling, ready to take his first flight and nodded his head. To me it looked like he was saying, “Help me big brother. I want to fly.”

A real smirk adorned my face and seeing me smiling he started smiling too. Even Bill who had gotten emotional listening to his words had a smile on his face, while his goons were looking at their friends with worry.

I wanted to talk to Tiny, Bill and the others more, but I couldn’t.

I saw the old scavenger captain’s special agent looking at me and he nodded his head just as our eyes meet.

“So the time has come ha…” I mumbled as Tiny asked me what happened.

“Nothing.” I told him and rubbed his face, which made him happy and smile.

“Okay, I have to go now, but wait for me at the mound entrance. I’ll be there soon.”

“Where are you going big brother?” He asked me and I told him to not worry.

“I’m just going to meet some acquaintances, but wait for me at the entrance, okay? I’m sure you already know where it is, right?”

“Yes.” Bill replied.

“Okay. Good. Now I have to go. Lets meet there… umm… in an hour?”

“Okay.”

“Then meet me in an hour at the entrance and I’ll help you become strong.”

“Alright.”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

“We’ll get going then.” They said, but kept on looking at me instead of moving out.

“Ha-ha… okay, I’ll go then.”

And I started walking. They walked out of the cavern following me and I soon reached the agent.

“Hey you look… different. You are him right?”

“Have I changed that much?” I asked him and he shook his head laughing.

“The same kid who just some days ago had to lift his head to meet my eyes, is today looking straight into my eyes and you are asking me whether you have changed or not. It surely feels amazing though. But you still grew up fast kid. Way too fast actually…”

“Ha-ha… don’t be so absurd.” I said, but I used [Hawkeyes] to check how I looked and I have to say, I looked too fucking dazzling.

My body shined a metallic brilliance as if it was made of metal, but that wasn’t so. Upon zooming in I found out my metallic shine and silver color was thanks to my hairs, which were acting like smalls mirrors.

“So they are the reason for my light resistance, hah.”

But the main change to my body was my height and my build. I had grown taller than before, but slimmer and leaner. I was at least a centimeter long now and stood face to face with one of the five elite third rankers in our mound. What could be more astonishing than that?

“Was that a skill?” he asked me as I cancelled [Hawk eyes] and looked back at him.

“How did you know?” I asked in astonishment. After all being able to detect the flow of mana was an incredible skill to have.

“Oh, I am just sensitive toward mana.” He replied whirling his antennas toward the roof. “I could feel a blob of mana leaving your body and rising up.”

“Oh!”

“So, if you are ready then shall we go?” He asked and I answered him nodding my head.

“Huh, yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

I gave one last look at the crowd that was still cheering for me, waved my hand and then followed behind him to.